mark fell: intra

Intra is Mark Fell's fascinating study in computer generated rhythm, performed by Drumming Grupo De Percussão on the Sixxen metallophone system: a set of six microtonally tuned instruments originally conceived by Iannis Xenakis for use on Pléäides (1976). Commissioned by Porto's Fundação de Serralves, the eight-part Intra develops from Fell's Focal Music series and his projects with Indian Carnatic musicians. It probes the perceptive difference between ideas of simplicity and complexity by instructing acoustic instrumentalists via electronic triggers relayed through headphones, an idea previously explored on the Time and Space Shapes for Gamelan installation Fell made in collaboration with Laurie Spiegel (Sheffield, 2017), as well as earlier collaborations between Fell and noted virtuoso improvisors Okkyung Lee, Laura Cannell, Sandro Mussida, and Aby Vulliamy. It is important to acknowledge Fell's ongoing interests in the systems of Carnatic music, the Southern form of Indian classical music whose mathematical sound rules are practically inseparable from musical expression in a way that's difficult to comprehend from a Western perspective. In terms of rhythm, Carnatic musicians perform within a set of rules, or tala, whose seven structures each have five variations, resulting in 35 possible combinations -- many more than the usual Western structures of minor and major scales. Heard in context of Carnatic systems, Intra becomes a crafty and even wittily playful piece of sound art, one which undermines deeply entrenched conventions and perceptions of music, both composed and improvised, generated and performed, in a way that's entirely pleasurable, even strangely soothing in its stilted trickle of off kilter tones. Artwork by Joe Gilmore. Edited by Rian Treanor. Mastered and cut by Matt Colton.